Criticizing Richard Cohen columns has become something of a parlor game, and most of the time, I don’t partake — because I’ve found it easier just to skip most of Cohen’s pieces. But I noticed Hilzoy’s take of Cohen’s latest piece and I have to say, she’s quite right; this new column is “pretty extraordinary.”
Cohen starts by talking about his perspective on Vietnam during the war.
There is the “I” who originally thought the Vietnam War was morally correct, that the communists were awful people and that the loss of South Vietnam (the North was already gone) would result in a debacle for its people. That’s, in fact, what happened. It was only later, when I myself was in the Army, that I deemed the war not worth killing or dying for. By then I — the second “I” — no longer felt it was winnable, and I did not want to lose my life so that somehow defeat could be managed more elegantly.
OK, so Cohen thought Vietnam was worth fighting, right up until he thought he was going to fight it. Cohen similarly found merit in the sales pitch for the war in Iraq, right up until the arguments started falling apart.
Things are precisely the same with Iraq, and here, too, I — No. 3 — originally had no moral qualms about the war. Saddam Hussein was a beast who had twice invaded his neighbors, had killed his own people with abandon and posed a threat — and not just a theoretical one — to Israel. If anything, I was encouraged in my belief by the offensive opposition to the war — silly arguments about oil or empire or, at bottom, the ineradicable and perpetual rottenness of America.
On the contrary, I thought. We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic.
This strikes me as misguided for several reasons.
First, basing support for the war by one’s annoyance with the war’s critics is unusually foolish. Indeed, in this case, the “offensive opposition to the war” turned out to be right.
Second, arguing that oil concerns influenced the war is no longer “silly.” It’s safe to say it officially stopped being silly two weeks ago when the president told Rush Limbaugh that U.S. had to maintain a presence in Iraq in order to help “control oil resources.”
And third, I’ve seen a variety of justifications for waging war, but invading a weaker country, in response to an attack that the country had nothing to do with, because it might prove to be “therapeutic,” is perhaps one of the more ridiculous ideas I’ve heard in a very long time.
Now, it’s worth noting, of course, that Cohen isn’t trying to justify his ongoing support for the war. On the contrary, he’s given up hope, seems disgusted by the White House, and lost any remaining patience. Good.
Cohen is, however, apparently trying to explain why he fell for this con in the first place, and he wants readers to understand that a) Bush’s critics were bothersome; and b) invading and blowing up a country a year and a half after 9/11 was likely to make all of us feel better.
If my judgment were that bad, I probably wouldn’t admit it in print.